Draphin's Star Trek Kitbash Build Thread.

[Draphin]

OK well here we go. In the recent Kitbash Kontest I had an opportunity to build something fun. As a Star Trek fan and a modeler I had never done anything like this before but I said to myself now is the time to try something new. Right after the first time I read the initial post for the contest I wanted to get started but I had no models. Well I decided to get a bit creative so I found some Pictures of the enterprise and I imported them into Googles Sketch up. I used those reference pics to create some Blocks of the major sections of the enterprise which I then had fun with putting them together in various ways. Here are a couple of my early thoughts.

[Draphin]

Sorry for the multiple posts in a row but I want you to fallow along in my process...

Ok so I had some ideas. Looking back some others had similar ideas. (Which in the end beat me out but oh well. ) I tried to imagine what would come with the Kits and I rememberd the tale of how Borg Ships came to be and that they were just a bunck of scrap Sprues that were glued together and painted up. So I got to thinking if their was enough Sprue material I would do one of those. That Idea got stuck in my head and never really left.

I then finally got my Kits and tore into them cataloguing every bit of material I could use, as was the rules. I soon realized their was not nearly enough Sprue material for a Borg ship so that idea got pushed to the side (where it festered and sat quietly for inspiration to strike. With the actual kit in had I begun to get even more Ideas and came up with something that I could not quite visualize with the loose parts so I turned to Sketch up once again. After which I said to myself this ship is to bad ***** to be by its self so I had to come up with another ship but the Borg vessel was still just out of view.

[Draphin]

I looked at the pieces I had and I kept picking up the stand Bases thinking of how I could use them then I started to think of the romulan/reeman ship from ST Nemesis. Of course If I just flip these buggars and cover them to look cimetrical (which they are not if you look closely on my model) then they kind of look like wings. and I can use the Stand post as Struts. If I use the extra enginereing section as a Hull throw on some Nacells (which in hindsight I should have cut down in length) then I will have a nice little Romulan attack type vessel.

Sorry no Pics for this one. But perhaps later tonight I will take some more pics of the finished models and post them here since I could not for the Kontest.

[Draphin]

Construction then began. I Started with the "Defiant" first. Yes the DS9 Defiant was inspiration for this ship and I was going to call it the Thor but with the movie just released I thought that would be too cheesy. Then when I looked at the decal sheets and saw they already had a Defiant... Well I just said ok Defiant it is. the trickiest part for me was, of course, cutting the engineering hull to fit over the saucer. (in hind sight it would have been a bit easier to cut the saucer but this is about how I did it and not about how I should have done it so.... I scribed the saucer shape to the best of my ability on the side of the Engineering hull and began to cut away. not realizing their was a bit of dip in the top half of the saucer.well when I fit the Hull over the saucer I thought well $#!+ where am I going to find another model. This being my first kit bash and really my first model I was a bit closed off to solutions and more of the mindset to get it right the first time. After a day of pouting. I realized Hey Dumb ***** you can just fill in the gaps with the Cardboard from the box!. So I cut some little fillers and continued on my merry way. After that I found it was far better to cut away from my lines and file the shape down to the lines so I could get a better fit. (Lesson Learned). With the hull in place both back and front I started constructing the nacelles and realized some painting had to be done first. so I broke out the red and copper and went to town getting the right look on the nacelle tips. I also realized the Nacelles had these gaping holes that were for the struts. but since I was not using them had to be filled. Yup more Cardboard. At first I was going to try to fill them with just glue but then I remembered the rules and thought that might break the rules which I did not want to be disqualified on a technicality so I got to cutting little plugs and gluing them into place. soon the Nacelles were together and painted but I wanted to paint the rest of the ship first before attaching the nacelles and when I looked at the ship I thought well Hell how am I gonna cover up those cardboard fillers? They did not exactly match the plastic light gray hull. I did not really want to pain the whole thing Dark gray so I though well a nice Stripe along there would cover it up and add a bit of flare to it so stripes here we come. One big stripe looked funny so lets add some more and some more and... well the next thing I knew I had a Clown Ship. Thank god the Acrylic Paint I was using cleaned of easily. I removed some of my art and got to a point I was happy with. but It was still too colorful for a ST TOS era Ship. Then it hit me I had alternate reality decals and whos to say the Alternate reality would not be so colorful. Ok I felt better now. Well the nacelles were attached and the Decals were added. And that ship was done.

I then turned to the Romulan Ship I had in mind and began working on it. First I traced the "wings" out of the box and glued them to the Bases. Then I figured out how to attach them and I figured cutting a straight slot into my second hull for the wings to slip into was the best solution. I measured and cut and was very happy with how they came out. I then measured out the strut locations and glued them on. I put the Nacelles together like before with some pre painting and Filling of holes. however as I was not going to use the extra conduit bits on the nacelles for this ship I had allot more tiny holes to fill. What A Pain! In the end I think there is more glue in them than card board but oh well. After several coats of Green Paint and some Decals I had a fairly decent Romulan ship.

Again more detailed Pics later tonight.

[Draphin]

Ok two weeks in and I was done... But I still had all these parts and time. Surely I could whip out another ship (the more the merrier and wouldn't that really impress the voters... ) I remembered seeing (in my various trips through cyber space) a pic of a Starfleet vessel with a single nacelle. But I had two left and I did not want to just mount them in a standard way to the saucer. ( no I am not going there...) so I decided I could have some fun here as well. I remembered a line from my favorite ST Movie Star Trek IV The voyage home where a ship was going to deploy a makeshift Solar Sail. Ohhhh I got excited. So I took my remaining Pieces and went back to Sketch up. After that I played with some paper and got the geometry worked out on how to cut the sails so they would curve right and attach to the ship. I also realized I would need to use the Card board of the box to make them. Paper would have been best but it needed to be flat and the only paper I had that I could use was the instructions that came with the kits. This unfortunately had creases I could not get around. The Cellophane from the box was another Idea but it just would not hold the shape. So I went to work on the ISS Exeter. It was a fairly basic build however once I was done with the paint and had applied all the decals I started to look at where to attach the Solar Sails and I said to myself this guy looks good like this and the Solar sails will just block off all this great work. So in the end the solar sails got cut. But I think the Ship turned out better for it!

[Draphin]

OK thats it! No more!! I am done!!! Wait their was something else something that was gnawing away in the back of my head... thats right I still hadnt done my Borg ship. When I looked over the parts that were left I saw all these cut up pieces of Cardboard box and then it hit me I have got plenty of this to make a ship. I first measured out for some solid shapes and to get a good Basic Geometric shape I came up with a tetrahedron. It fit all my criteria. Geometric Simple and never been done before! (at least to my knowledge). I originally thought of a pyramid but that has 5 sides and the Tetrahedron is only four. As Luck would have it I still had 4 largish pieces of cardboard from the two boxes so I measured and cut my 4 equilateral triangles. glued them together. which was a PAIN! in the end I had to cut little braces/hinges for the inside to hold the panels together. I then put down a coat of Dark Gray. Next I cut a bunch of short strips and glued them down randomly to each side to form a sort of girder base. The another coat of gray fallowed by a heavy green Dry brush to really pull out the edges and give it some color. After that I cut longer strips that I again put on randomly but I let them fold over the edges. this was fallowed by more gray and green Dry Brush. For the next layer I cut a bunch of little shapes, mostly triangles but some other random polygons as well. I then used these to fill in the holes left by the strips and also to fill spaces between the strips. For paint this time, Yup you guessed it. Dark gray with a green dry brush. But wait! This time I also tried to add a little red dry brush and unexpectedly (at least to me) it came out a nice rusty redish brown. Ok note for future red and green make brown... I than proceeded to my final layer which was more strips but this time I put them on in a grid like pattern to give the outside a look of order and structure. The final layer of paint was the same as before Dark Gray, Green dry brush and a few red dry brush hits for texture and age. After this was done I said Enough! well actually it was my wife as she wanted me to come to bed. . Ok enough of that. The next day, or somewhere in there, as I sat down to my computer I saw the post in the Kontest thread about giving our ships history. Well I thought that was great and as I did my research I came up with this great story of how all these ships came to be. I got the name for my romulan vessel from the TNG Cannon. I used TS = Tal Shiar in the registry I was going to use 187 (police code for murder) but thought it was to gangster so I changed it to 185. The name Rekal was the name Troy was given when she was abducted by the Romulans and turned into a Tal Shiar agent. I wanted the ship to be a little mean like the romulans so I made it a Military Scout since the Tal Shiar were a semi-military group. Of course since my Starfleet ships were actually Terran Empire ( I am really happy to see I was not the only one to go with the Terran Empire) this all could have worked. The next time I want online I found our word count got cut. Not a bad thing as I was getting out of control. So I went back to the drawing board and condensed my story to a short scene. Which I thought was great as it lent to the imagination. Now I just needed to create that Scene. The first two pics I took I tried to get good 3/4 shots that would give you a fair glimpse of all sides of the ships.
As a note since I used my stands as parts in the making of my ships I was left to make new stands. In keeping with the rules I only used what was in the Kits and painted with only the colors available to us. More cardboard box and Dark Gray paint.
Ok back to the ramblings of a crazy man.
For the Third shot I wanted some action. I also finally figured out a way to use the cellophane from the kits. (a minor goal of mine since I asked if it could be used) I cut some cellophane and painted the edge a mixture of red and copper (not that you can really see the copper) then I rolled it up and tacked down the outside flap. viola Phaser Beam! Next I cut a triangle of Cellophane and put swirls of copper paint on it. Once I thought it had dried I tried to put a layer of green on top but it lifted the copper in some places and balled it up. After I was done I looked at it and thought well that sucks cause now it looks even more like a tractor beam.... which is what I was going for. Finally I grabbed a scrap of cellophane threw on some green a little red perhaps a pinch of copper and crumpled it up put a dab of glue on it to help it hold it's shape and the next thing I have is one explosion. After some fiddling around and a few funny faces I was ready for the final shot and the rest is 5th place History!

Thanks for fallowing this epic journey of mine and if you have any comments or questions dont be afraid to ask. No Really don't be afraid... awww come back........ LOL

[trekman1017]

thats quite alot of information on a build

[Draphin]

thats quite alot of information on a build

Ya Well without photos I have to use the "thousands" of words.

[Jm419]

It worked out - I wasn't expecting to see any Borg ships, nor was I expecting *four* ships to come out of two kits. You did a lot of nice work on these kits. The Romulan ship confounded me as to where you got the wings - but of course, the stands make sense.

[Levi]

Woah! You did it on computer too! I feel so primitive now with my sticky tape design methods. I love the borg ship and totally feel for you with your cutting/filling methods. I was tempted to go for the cardboard method too but I wanted to keep the boxes near mint. Haha.. I know, I know, sad You did a really great job with the decals. You should've seen me destroying all mine, just trying to get one of the C's on There are so many tiny bits of detail going on everywhere. I think they're great

[Draphin]

Ok here is a couple sets of new photos. I am glad we could only use three in the Kontest as If I could have used all these shots I think I would have done worse as you can see allot of the uneven details.

In this Post I will have the Romulan ship. Subsequent posts will have the other ships. I think this ship though came out the best for me.

[Draphin]

Now we move onto the Defiant you may notice the nacelles are a little wonky and the tail section is a bit off kilter. In the last shot you may also be able to make out were I had to use some card board to fill the gap between hull and saucer.

[Draphin]

Now On to the Exeter. I think some of these shots came out epic like they were from the motion pictures. Happy Accident!

[Draphin]

Finally we come to the Dreaded BORG!!! on one face you may notice a shiny spot. that is where I had to add some glue to hold the explosion in place. I am going to go back over it to dull it out again. Also I did cut a small corner as I was well just getting tired. just do me a favor and dont tell any one ok?

[wolfhound]

Darphin, I really love that version of the Exiter you built, reminds me of the Starfleet battles Akula class starship and that's the reason you got my vote

[Draphin]

Darphin, I really love that version of the Exiter you built, reminds me of the Starfleet battles Akula class starship and that's the reason you got my vote

Well Thank you for that I appreciate it.